---
title: "Checkly alternative: test checkout with AI agents"
source: "https://ottom.io/compare/checkly-alternative"
summary: "Ottom is an alternative to Checkly for one specific job: finding out whether an AI shopping agent can buy from your store. Checkly runs browser and API checks that your team writes as code. Ottom needs only your web address. It sends an agent through the purchase, from finding a product to reaching the payment step, and reports the point where it stalled. The two answer different questions, so running both is reasonable."
---

# Checkly alternative: test checkout with AI agents

Ottom is an alternative to Checkly for one specific job: finding out whether an AI shopping agent can buy from your store. Checkly runs browser and API checks that your team writes as code. Ottom needs only your web address. It sends an agent through the purchase, from finding a product to reaching the payment step, and reports the point where it stalled. The two answer different questions, so running both is reasonable.

## What Checkly does

In its own words, from the sources below, read on 13 Oct 2026.

- Checkly describes itself as a reliability platform for developers, covering uptime monitoring, API checks, browser checks, scheduled job monitoring, alerting and status pages. [1]
- Its browser checks are Playwright tests run in real browsers, and it describes monitors as TypeScript written alongside your application code. [2][3]
- It names login, checkout and signup as the kinds of flow a browser check watches. [1]
- Its product page says checks can run as often as every minute from more than 20 locations around the world, and that each alert carries a screenshot, a trace and an AI root cause. [2]
- It also offers AI features for creating a monitor from a prompt and for analysing failed runs. [1]

## What Ottom does

- You give Ottom a web address. There is no script to write or maintain and nothing to install on your store.
- An agent tries to buy something the way an AI assistant shopping for a person would. It finds a product, reads what your pages say about it, compares it, and works through cart and checkout.
- It stops at the payment step on purpose. It never enters a real card and never places an order on your live store.
- The report names the stage where the agent stalled, what it was looking at, and what to change, written so you can forward it to whoever looks after your site.
- Paid plans run on a schedule and alert you by email or Slack when the result changes.

## Checkly and Ottom side by side

| Question | Checkly | Ottom |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Who writes the test | Your team, as Playwright code kept beside your application. | Nobody. You give a web address and the agent works out the path itself. |
| What it checks | That flows and endpoints you defined still work: a login, an API response, a checkout you scripted. | Whether an AI shopping agent can find, judge, compare and buy, reading only what your pages say. |
| Scope | Uptime, APIs, browser flows, scheduled jobs and status pages across your stack. | One journey: buying from an online store. |
| What a failure tells you | Which check failed, with a screenshot, a trace and an AI root cause. | Which of four stages the agent stalled at, what it saw there, and what to change. |
| Who the result is written for | Developers. | The store owner, in words meant to be forwarded to a developer. |

## Which one you need

### When Checkly fits

Checkly fits when you want developers to decide exactly which flows and endpoints are checked, keep those checks in code beside the application, and hear the moment one fails.

### When Ottom fits

Ottom fits when the question is whether AI shopping agents can buy from you, and nobody on the team wants to write or maintain a script to find out.

### Using both

A scripted checkout check that passes tells you the path works for a script that already knows where every button is. An agent sent by an AI assistant knows none of that. It has to work the path out from what the page says, and that is the part Ottom tests. Running both covers the path your team scripted and the path an agent has to find.

## What Ottom does not do

- Ottom does not run scripts you write.
- Ottom does not check APIs, uptime or pages outside the shopping journey.
- Ottom does not test payment. It stops before it.

## Questions

### Is Ottom a replacement for Checkly?

Not for what Checkly does. Checkly checks the flows and endpoints your team defines, across your whole stack. Ottom checks one thing it defines itself: whether an AI shopping agent can buy from your store. If that is the only answer you need, Ottom alone may be enough. If you also need API and uptime monitoring, keep Checkly.

### Should I still keep a scripted checkout check?

Yes, if you have one. The two results mean different things. A passing scripted check says the path you wrote down still works. A passing Ottom scan says an agent that had never seen your store found its own way to the payment step.

### Do I need to write code to use Ottom?

No. You give Ottom your web address. There is no script to write and nothing to install on your store.

### Does Ottom place real orders?

No. On every self-serve plan the agent goes as far as the payment step and stops there. It never enters a real card and never places an order on your live store. On Enterprise Plus, only if you ask, it can complete checkout on your staging store using your gateway’s test mode.

## Sources

Everything above about Checkly comes from its own site and documentation, read on 13 Oct 2026.

1. Checkly home page: https://www.checklyhq.com/
2. Checkly synthetic monitoring product page: https://www.checklyhq.com/product/synthetic-monitoring/
3. Checkly documentation: Browser checks: https://www.checklyhq.com/docs/browser-checks/